Decorative lighting is known for use at homes and businesses to achieve a desired architectural or visual effect. Decorative light strings are one type of well known decorative lighting that is particularly popular for use around the fall and wintertime holidays. Many individuals believe that there's nothing like a cheerful string of lights to foster the holiday spirit. Bright, twinkling, and/or flashing lights, both inside and outside, are one of the joys and traditions of the holiday season. One type of light string that is commonly known as C-sets in the art, includes a plurality of parallel connected bulb sockets that accept generally cone-shaped C-shaped (e.g., C6, C7, Intermediate Base, C9, Candelabra Base, etc.), G-shaped globe bulbs, or other suitable bulbs of one or more colors. When installed on a home, building, or other structure, C-sets are known for providing a holiday visual effect akin to a decorated gingerbread house, and therefore are desirable to traditionalist holiday decorators.
More recently, another type of light string, which has become increasingly popular, is commonly known as icicle light strings, or more commonly known as icicle lights. Icicle lights typically include a plurality of series connected “mini” bulbs (i.e., 2.5 volt bulbs) arranged on a number of conductors that extend generally transverse to a mainline conductor. These transversely extending conductors, which emulate the visual effect of hanging icicles, are known as drops in the art. Although such icicle lights have become quite popular, the foregoing traditionalist holiday decorators have been somewhat reluctant to adopt icicle lights in conjunction with the foregoing C-sets for various reasons including, but not limited to, the amount of work required to hang two separate light strings, the difficulty in preventing the two separate light strings from becoming entangled during hanging and storage, and the difficulty in aligning the c-set and icicle lights to achieve a desired visual effect.
One product attempting to obviate the traditionalists' reluctance to purchase and install icicle lighting is a c-bulb shaped cover for a mini light. The generally translucent or transparent cover is installed on one or more mini lights of an icicle light string to provide a more traditional visual effect, or a combination effect. Since the light output from a mini light is typically less than the light output from a C-type bulb, the use of such covers further dims the light output of the mini light onto which they are installed, and does not provide a suitable visual effect. In view of the foregoing, a light string providing a desirable combination lighting effect would be welcome.